Re: practice/singing the praises of...

03-15-2000, 04:52 PM

Before I get to the main aspect of this posting, let me just say that IMO,
this path leads the practitioner first to a stabilisation of thought via the
agency of attention and will around a pre-determined object of attention.
It really does not matter what this object is, or whether it may be a moving
kind of attention, like sweeping through the body. The aim here is to
develop the ability to pay attention to things in a clear way, unencumbered
by the interference of thought.
More long exposition coming -
Yes, there are two different approaches to the development of insight.
The vehicle of calm, Samatha, involves the prior development of calm
meditation to the level of access concentration or absorption
concentration as a basis for development of insight. There are any
number of mental exercises for this - kasinas, and so forth such as
contemplation on fire, or space (and I rather think this comes from
the yogas of Hinduism), and one attains access to the fine material
or immaterial jhanas. Then the meditator turns to the development of
insight by defining the physical and mental phenomena occuring in the
jhanas and seeking their conditions, after which he contemplates
these factors in terms of their three characteristics - and so on,
this gets involved and is perhaps more than you want to know about -
essentially, one develops degrees of calm with Samatha but all
Buddhist teachers including the Tibetans say that Samatha absorptions
are impermanent and do not lead to liberation although one achieves
some purification of mind. The Tibetans have funny stories about the
yogi who went to a cave and stayed in absorptions for a thousand years
and then when he came out of it carried on with his chores just where
he left off.
Vipassana does not employ the vehicle of calm as a foundation for
developing insight, although westeners are usually taught some
following the breath because we are so active and busy mentally, very
speedy and restless. The meditator, after purifying his morality,
enters directly into mindful contemplation of the changing material
and mental processes in his own experience (body and mind only).
(This yogi is called a "dry insight worker" because they develop
insight without the "moisture" of the jhanas.) As one practices,
contemplation gains strength and precision, the mind becomes
naturally concentrated upon the ever-changing stream of experience.
Purification of view (freedom from wrong view of a permanent self) is
the discernment of mind and matter with respect to their
characteristics, functions, manifestations, and approximate causes.
Insight arises into the nature of personality which is discerned as a
compound of mental and material factors which occur interdependently,
without any self within or behind them.
After initial practice where one is freed from obstacles to progress,
the meditator passes through a succession of insights - some list
nine - others fourteen and they are definately experienced as a
tangeable path and unfolding of insight - and constitute purification
by knowledge and vision. You go through the path as process taking
different insights as objects of meditation and insight "ripens."
The meditation teacher who has passed through most of these stages
helps you along when you report what you are noting as primary object
in your meditation. You may begin with watching the rising and
falling of the abdomen as primary object of meditation but then your
object of meditation becomes what next predominates in your mind
stream - usually pain at first but eventually, and I have no personal
experience of this, nirvana itself becomes object of meditation and
one becomes a "stream enterer" fully understanding the truth of
suffering, its origin, realizing the truth of its cessation and,
developing the path to its cessation the meditator then enters upon
the supramundane cognitive process of absorption. This is quite
"high" - better to deal with more basic things. But, quite early on
in ones attempts with vipassana meditation, one has the sense of a
concrete path, a feeling of equanimity towards ones physical and
mental suffering (and concern for others) and whiffs of freedom.
Sweeping the body can be a primary object of meditation but it
depends on the student's needs. Anyone given to a lot of use of
imagination and conceptual thinking might be told to do this for
awhile but its very individual when you work with a teacher.
One can easily feel quite miserable in beginning meditation practice -
we confront our habitual state without any of our usual distractions.
We experience cravings, aversion, inner conflict, negative tapes
endlessly running, endless aches and pains, but this is the meat of
practice. We learn not to push the negative stuff away or pull
pleasant things like bliss and neat thoughts, to us. If we just
observe whatever negativity arises without touching it, without
identifying with it then it plays itself out from its own finite
energy and eventually dissapates and goes away forever. Through
just observing with equanimity everything that rises in consciousness
- hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling body and thinking mind
without interfering or making any value judgments we work through
blockages down to the bedrock of our intrinsic nature which is
happiness beyond happiness. There is no way over all the stuff
except working with what we are with insight, but we are not cripples
in any way - just suffering beings. Actually, one quite quickly
breaks through the misunderstanding of the "I" habit quite early on.
Our major problem isnt really with anything that arises in
consciousness - it with our resistence to it. ie. anguish, despair,
disappointment, broken heartedness and general hopelessness - which I
rather think we like to use the word "depression" to describe. One
sits with this without resistence if it is present in any moment -
and then as the awareness of this mind state fades, one returns
attention to rising and falling of abdomen, and then sound may arise,
and attention relaxes with hearing until this fades and attention
returns to abdomen rising and falling, and then sadness may arise, or
memories, or pain in the body - attention follows until this
dissolves and mindfulness returns to rising and falling. Sometimes
during this process - pain is intense and you eventually note that
resistence/fear is present and then resistence becomes the primary
object of meditation. Fear is a really interesting object of
mindfulness as one can see it right down to a primary fear of death.
It is a bit like moving log jams and accumulated debrie out of a river
so that it may then flow freely again....this takes "right effort" and
right concentration and so on...the mind continuum is naturally
purified and transformed through the process of observing with
equanimity and there can come a point in intensive practice when all
that is left is light and one has the sense of being "enlightened by
ten thousand things."
This moment to moment activity of mind continuum is what gives us the
sense of a self but really it is only activity that rises and passes
as part of the flow of nature (like the stop frames of a film that
give the illusion of a "movie." The activity called personality is
made up of certain ideas and body sensations that moment to moment
give us the sense of "I am". Then, when there is no interference
with the activity flow of self, this mind continuum, it expands and
contracts with the flow of events, rather like the breath or the
tide. You are really more of a doing than a thing - it becomes
"no-self" and activity seems to move out of emptiness or a bright
transparent clarity.
Long before one even approaches nirvana, although one may accomplish
that in this very life, one quite cheers up. People have been doing
this for 2500 years and even early as Buddhist practice evolved out
of the earlier teachings of India, adding their insights to the
general structure of the path from all the Buddhist cultures - I
think this is a remarkable heritage, a gift of the "wish-fulfilling
gem". One of the preliminaries in practice is to contemplate our own
death, we know not when it might be, and the difficulty of aquiring
the human body to work out our freedom. Some may have fortunate
karma and be "all-at-oncers", wherein they understand almost
immediately the truth - the rest of us have to walk one foot ahead of
the other making haste slowly and share the going - oddly there is "no
path" but there is a path TO no path.
Joyce
It is then proposed that such one-pointedness will lead to a complete stable
position of the interaction between attention (as the observer) and the
object (as the observed). They have called this state Samatha.
The main purpose of reaching this stability of consciousness is to have a
clear mind which can have Insights (Vipassana) into many aspects of our
being as well as the nature of experience, reality etc.
The ultimate purpose of Vipassana is to come the clear understanding that
thoughts, and especially the I - thought is a transitory phenomenon,
appearing and disappearing with all other perceptions.
This is what I understand of this practice as it is mostly taught around the
world.

Please add to this if you will.
In a way, the above is the ' cold ' practice and does not include the extremely
important aspect to which you so correctly pointed - the content of
consciousness. My understanding is that this practice has an elaborate way
of dealing with the psychological factors present in the practitioner, what
you called the content of consciousness. The purpose with this is to
prepare the practitioner on a very wide base to deal with the viscitudes of
life outside of meditation.
This brings me to what I really wanted to agree with you. Meditation can
certainly take place in a vacuum, and will undoubtedly show results. But it
is my experience that for many, despite the blisses, insights, clarities of
perception, moments of oneness and so on, if the psychology is not attended
to as a PARALELL process, and very ofetn as part of meditation practice,
transformation will be slow and for ever hampered by the deeply rooted
psychological stuff we carry with us from very early. This psychology
cannot be by-passed in the spiritualising process. All has to be attended
to, and by all I mean everything which is hampering the revelation of the
non-dual condition. We can move right to the heart of the meditation
process, but if we are still emotional and psychological cripples, our
efforts are very likely to be of little use. I- consciousness lies deeply
embedded in the entire phsyche, and has to be seen and transcended at all
levels of our being lest we mistake our search for psychological security
for the spiritual path.
Love Moller

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